


Limits

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Self-Harm, rated T for thematic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 09:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19903552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "After all the years that each Guardian has been around, they’ve all formed some habits for how to deal with stress. Each one of them self harms in some way, keeping it secret from other Guardians, and assuming that no one else does so; it especially happens after there are situations that they wish they could stop, but they can’t (natural disasters, maybe?)Some ideas (but feel free to change it up)- Tooth plucks her feathers- North gives himself tiny cuts along his legs/torso- Bunny doesn’t eat- Sandy deliberately gives himself nightmares/doesn’t sleep (if you’re headcanon is that he ever does sleep), or uses his sand to hurt himself (whips, manacles that are too tight, etc.)Meanwhile Jack has never hurt himself, and he accidentally finds out about the other’s self-harming, and his mind is just blown...[cut for length]"The stressor for the Guardians is that they each have so much power, but it still has limits, and they can’t protect all children from all harm. Jack is really worried about all of them, and starts trying to help, but he suspects he’s really, really out of his depth here.





	Limits

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 5/22/2016.

“But…why?” Jack asks quietly. “If there’s a problem, maybe we could solve it?”  
  
Tooth looks down, finding the little bare patch on her side. She hadn’t thought it was big enough for anyone to notice, but she wasn’t used to having anyone but her fairies around to notice in the first place. She hadn’t guessed that Jack would come by to visit while she had a feather still between her fingers.  
  
“The problem is that I’m not powerful enough,” Tooth says. Jack deserves an honest answer; he’s trying so hard to be still, to keep himself from doing anything that would send her away, send her to hide.  
  
Jack looks from her to the large windows of her room, showing the palace spreading all around them, even more expansive than it appears, folding in and out of a few different kinds of reality, and all sustained by belief and her magic. “I may need you to explain a little more,” he says.  
  
She gives a short sigh. “You know that I’m the Guardian of Memory. That sustains the palace and all my fairies, and allows us to collect the memories of children and reawaken them when needed. And it sustains me, too. But I’m not omnipresent, and I’m not omniscient. Even with the help of my fairies, I can’t touch every memory box when a person needs it. I spend so much time directing the collection of the teeth, and now that I go do some of my own collecting, and spending time with you and the other Guardians—there are so many times I’ve failed, and even if I did everything I could do, all I have are memories. It’s not within my power to interfere when children, when they’re…in situations where they can’t make any good memories at all. It’s not right that I can’t do anything. I’m a Guardian, aren’t I?”  
  
“So am I,” Jack says. “And so are Sandy, and North, and Bunny. I don’t, and I don’t think that they would, want you hurting yourself. I mean, you already do so much! You’re doing far more than could be done without you. And don’t we all have the minds of people, anyway, no matter what our powers? It’s not like any of us can do everything.”  
  
“Well…that’s true, but look at Sandy. He does more than any of us.”  
  
“So you want him to tell you it’s all right, what you manage to do? That you shouldn’t hurt yourself for not doing more?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Tooth says.  
  
“I think it would be good for you to talk to the others, though,” Jack says. “Unless you really don’t want them to know?”  
  
Tooth shrugs. “They already know how limited I am, so I suppose it won’t make a big difference if they know that I also know how terrible my limitations are.”  
  
“Okay.” It’s not, but Jack doesn’t want to get into an argument telling Tooth that she’s wrong, now. “I’m going to go talk to Sandy,” he says softly.  
  
*  
  
Jack stands in front of the four senior Guardians, trying desperately not to look too exasperated. At least he doesn’t think he ought to conceal his worry. To his dismay, he had found that all the others shared lines of thinking similar to Tooth in regard to themselves, and not only that, but they also all acted according to that line of thinking. North—he hadn’t wanted to see all those little scars. Bunny—why had Bunny thought Jack would think that the bare patches on his skin made any more sense than the ones on Tooth! Jack had thought Sandy might be the exception, but, no, as it turned out, he was the one who was simply the best at pretending he didn’t understand what Jack was asking. Jack was just glad he had been suspicious enough about Sandy’s claim that he didn’t need to sleep to mention it to the others. And they had all confirmed that Sandy did need sleep, did need a lot of it, and that the signs Jack had interpreted as “didn’t need” actually meant something more like “shouldn’t have.”  
  
“So,” Jack says. “I have no idea how to start with this. You all know now that, and I’m just going to say it, that you’ve been hurting yourselves in secret because you think you’re not doing enough as Guardians. So. Okay. First thing. Everyone but Tooth. Do you think she should be hurting herself?” A chorus of protest and a flurry of signs all added up to a definite “NO,” which Tooth then started to protest. “Right!” Jack interrupts. “Everyone but Sandy. Do you think he should be hurting himself?” The response was the same, and remained so for North and Bunny.  
  
“So…I think it’s pretty clear that no one wants anyone else to hurt themselves.” The others nod, but for a long moment no one says anything.  
  
“Jack.” North breaks the silence. “I, at least, never believed that my fellow Guardians would want me to hurt myself. This is why I kept my actions a secret. Because I knew that only I could see my failures clearly enough to understand why I should suffer pain. Of course Tooth and Bunny and Sandy and you do not want me hurt. I would not be willing to fight beside everyone otherwise. This knowledge we all have now…it is not telling my mind anything new as regards myself, though, perhaps for the worse, it has now made me worry that I have not been a good companion to my fellow Guardians, if they do this also.”  
  
“That’s about the shape of it,” Bunny agrees.  
  
It’s Jack’s turn to be silent. He really, really doesn’t know what to do here. All of them have been thinking the way they have for longer than he’s existed. And the only thing he’s coming up with now isn’t going to make anyone feel any better. At least not right away. But maybe it will keep them safer until he figures out something else? “Do you, all of you,” he begins slowly, “want me to dwell on how maybe I’ve made things worse? Do you want me to start looking for ways that I fail as a Guardian? I’m new, and you know, it was pretty easy for Pitch to convince me that all I ever did was make a mess of everything. Only the memories Tooth kept for me allowed me to think otherwise. So…I’m sure it would be easy for me to find my failures, easier than it is for all of you, probably. Do you want me to learn that that’s what I should do? Do you want me to learn that I should react to that in the same kind of way as all of you?”  
  
The answer is a clear and unanimous no.  
  
“All right, then.” Jack pauses. “So, do you think that you all, by your actions, can help me avoid learning this? And I know what to look for, now, so don’t just think you can be more secretive.”  
  
“I’ll try,” says Tooth.  
  
“So will I,” says Bunny.  
  
“As will I,” says North, and Sandy nods.  
  
Jack smiles at them. It’s all he can hope for, now, but it still might not solve things. He’s going to need to look for someone else’s help. And he’s not going to ask the Moon. The Moon was supposed to see everything about the Guardians, and he hadn’t said anything against what they were doing. His smile falters a little. Well, if there’s more wrong here than he knows, he’ll deal with that, too. He has to. He’s a Guardian. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #this isn't my least favorite prompt but it's up there 
> 
> bowlingforgerbils said: These sorts of prompts always make me wonder. Does the prompter want characters to go through what they go through? Or is it simply an angst fetish? I hope it’s not the later, but I like what you wrote. Jack has his work cut out for him. :/


End file.
